Retired Justice and chair of the Madlanga Commission, Mbuyiseli Madlanga, has called on legal practitioners to restore dignity, integrity, and public trust in South Africa’s legal profession.
Madlanga delivered the opening remarks at the launch of Legal Ethics in South Africa, a book edited by Professor Helen Kruuse with contributions from academics across the country on Thursday evening.
Lawyers
During his address, Madlanga said legal ethics must go hand in hand with legal practice
“Lawyers are not only service providers, they are officers of the court, constitutional agents, and ideally champions of justice. Legal ethics is not merely about compliance, it is about understanding, judgment, and moral courage.”
Madlanga reflected on the troubling public perception of lawyers, drawing on Judge Jeremy Pickering’s memoir Raising the Bar: The Making of a Judge.
He noted Pickering’s lament that “the old saying that a witch will sail to the sea in a sieve, but the devil will not venture aboard a lawyer’s conscience has an element of truth.”
Madlanga stressed that this observation came from a judge with decades of experience at the bar and on the bench, who had witnessed unethical conduct over a long period.
Law profession
Despite acknowledging the sorrowful state of affairs, Madlanga urged the profession not to despair but to self‑correct.
“Let us do everything we can to self‑correct. May I sound an exhortation that each lawyer must play their role to bring honour back to the legal profession? Let us not hide behind a sense of impunity with which comes the misguided belief that you will never be caught,” he said.
He emphasised that the real issue was not whether misconduct is detected but whether lawyers act ethically.
“Being caught or not being caught is not the issue. The issue is to act ethically and honourably.”
[WATCH] Retired Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga is calling on legal practitioners to restore dignity, integrity, and public trust in South Africa’s legal profession. #Newzroom405 pic.twitter.com/Sw12HfJolA
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No condemnation
Madlanga clarified that his remarks should not be seen as a wholesale condemnation of the profession.
“I should not be heard to be pronouncing a vote of no confidence in the legal profession. I believe that the vast majority of lawyers out there are honourable and ethical,” he concluded.
Wits University said Legal Ethics in South Africa comes 40 years after the last South African textbook dedicated solely to legal ethics, and responds to a transformed curriculum and professional landscape.
It said the book is anchored in the constitution’s vision of dignity, equality, and freedom and combines doctrinal and regulatory grounding with historical, theoretical and contextual insight.
